When we moved from Chicago to Washington in 1979 I felt a little displaced, but by 1980 I was working as an attorney at Department of Energy in the Office of General Counsel for Solar and Conservation, where we were involved with the implementation of President Carter's initiatives aimed at producing at least 20% of our energy from solar sources by the year 2000.
https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/assets/documents/speeches/energy-crisis.phtml
(As I recalled this involved 20 Quads, or quadrillion B.T.U.s of energy in this manner - -I need to check this figure!)
Solar energy is not just from direct sunlight. It is from water and wave energy (as the heat of the sun moves water), geothermal energy from natural underground sources, wave energy (waves respond to solar gravitational pull), and other technologies.
We had several programs to achieve this, including small demonstration grants where local entities - schools, community facilities, etc. - could apply for grants to install solar and conservation features and then show their communities how these innovations worked, what they cost and what they saved, small loan programs to allow building and home owners to invest in the new technologies that could save them money over time, and certification programs for local businesses that would be involved in installing these technologies.
But in 1980 when Reagan was elected, among his first pronouncements was that this would make us "hot in the summer and cold in the winter" and (presumably with the approval of the oil interests that helped him get elected) began to dismantle our programs. By the end of 1981 they were vastly diminished or gone, and I was working at Public Citizen Health Research Group.
However, during that time I decided to try out as a writer for Hexagon, a popular annual topical variety show that raised a lot of money for some wonderful charities. Hexagon was originally created by a group of Princtonians who had been active with the famous Princeton Triangle Show. When Princeton went co-ed, they added another triangle to produce a hexagon, hence the name of the annual Washington show.
https://www.hexagon.org
I was still working for DOE and I had been impressed with I had read about the methane produced by intestinal gas expelled from animals in feedlots was being converted to provide the heat for a large office building complex in Nebraska! (Now we know more about the role of methne in climate change, but this was back in 1981 or so).
So I wrote Be a Farter for Carter and sang it to a nondescript melody for my Hexagon writing staff audition. The committee broke up with laughter and then announced that while this song was too edgy for the already edgy Hexagon, they wanted me on the writing staff, and I produced a number of other lyrics, a few of which made the show.
The music for these was written, by happy coincidence, by one of their volunteer composers, Doug Maurer, a computer engineer now working in D.C. but whom I knew from our undergrad days at University of Chicago.
Hexagon was a fun experience and I'm glad I did it --- once!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~